The field of the present disclosure generally relates to an automated checkout stand or lane (checkstand), and more particularly to systems and methods providing feedback to a user of the checkstand.
An optical code, such as a barcode, is essentially a machine-readable representation of information in a visual format. Some optical codes use a dark ink on a white substrate to create high and low reflectance upon scanning or reading of the optical code. For the purposes of the present description, the terms scan and read may be used interchangeably to connote acquiring data associated with an optical code. Likewise, scanner and optical code reader may be used interchangeably to connote devices used to acquire data associated with an optical code. Based on the symbology being used (e.g., UPC, Code 39, Code 128, and PDF417), an optical code may comprise data characters (or codewords e.g., in the case of PDF417) and/or overhead characters represented by a particular sequence of bars and spaces that may have varying widths.
Optical codes have widespread applications. For example, optical codes can be used to identify a class of objects (e.g., merchandise) or unique items (e.g., patents). Therefore, optical codes are found on a wide variety of objects, such as retail goods, company assets, and documents. Optical codes are placed on items and read by optical code readers as the items arrive or as they are sold to help track production at manufacturing facilities or sales and inventory at stores.
Optical code readers, such as laser scanners or imager-based readers, are well known for use in scanning or reading barcodes and other types of optical codes. For example, in retail stores, optical code readers are placed at checkstands or are built into a checkstand counter and generally have one or more read volumes (scan volumes) that collectively establish a read zone in which optical codes may be successfully read. Typically, optical codes are placed on or associated with items, packages, containers or other objects and read by the optical code reader when the items bearing the optical codes are passed through the read zone.
In an assisted checkout process, a customer places items on a counter, deck, or conveyor of a checkstand; the items are transported to a checkout clerk (checker); and the checker then takes each item and moves it through the read zone of the optical code reader. Accordingly, the checker typically locates an optical code on a label of the item, and holds the label or packaging in a particular orientation to obtain a successful read of the optical code as it is moved through the read zone. Misalignment of the optical code (e.g., misaligned barcode lines), inadvertent movement of the optical code away from the read zone, an item that is not on file in an inventory database, an optical code that does not match other detected visual characteristics of the item (e.g., size or shape), or other problems that may arise during the read and data capture operation can result in a misread or a non-read of the optical code (also referred to as an exception), which slows the checkout process.
The likelihood or frequency of exceptions is exacerbated in self-checkout systems, i.e., checkout systems that do not rely on a checker to operate the optical code reader. Users (such as checkers, or customers) of conventional semi-automatic self-checkout systems may not have sufficient experience using the optical code reader, or may have difficulty in locating and positioning optical codes in a read zone for producing successful data reads.
Prior attempts to minimize or eliminate the participation of customers and checkers using automated self-checkout barcode scanners have included a device described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,355 (Rando '355). According to Rando '355, an item is placed by a customer onto a conveyor belt and it is transported by the conveyor to an automated scanning device. However, these prior devices occasionally fail to achieve a successful scan on the first pass of the item through a scan zone because of the wide variations in product sizes, irregularities of packaging shapes, differing locations of barcodes, and due to larger items shadowing neighboring items. These exceptions necessitate rescanning, often with handheld scanners, in order to obtain data associated with the barcodes on packages that generate exceptions.
To reduce the likelihood of exceptions, previous automated checkstands relied principally on adequate inter-item separation distance, i.e., item singulation. However, customers usually had no intuitive way of knowing when, where, or how to place items on a checkstand conveyor to ensure that the items were properly singulated, and thereby decrease the likelihood of exceptions. Rudimentary attempts to enforce proper item singulation relied on simple gating mechanisms that controlled belts to convey items serially into a scan zone. In other words, these systems used a gating signal that would only allow one item (i.e., one barcode) into a scan zone at a time during the valid period of the gating signal.
Aside the serial processing, one disadvantage of these previous gating configurations was that they could only detect improper item singulation after items had reached the scan volume. In other words, customers could initially load an input conveyor improperly, thereby generating an initial exception when the previously loaded items were conveyed to the scan zone. Another disadvantage was that items had to be spaced apart by at least the length of the scan zone because the gating signal started when an item first blocked a first optical eye upon entry into the scan zone, and would end when a second optical eye on an opposite side of the scan zone became unblocked. This fixed separation distance frequently created large and unnecessary inter-item spacing, which limited throughput.
Conventional automated checkstands occasionally provided rudimentary instructions on display screens that instructed customers. However, the present inventors have realized that customers who either could not read or simply preferred to skip the instructions had no intuitive way of knowing how to properly load and singulate items on a conveyor in order to decrease the likelihood of generating an exception. Users accustomed to using self-checkout checkstands are typically provided a tone or other signal when the item's optical code is read. However, automated checkstands read and decode items in a read zone that is typically spaced apart some distance from the customer. Moreover, the customer may be dealing with other loading tasks while previously loaded items are successfully read (or generate exceptions) at a location farther down a conveyor. The separation of customers from the read zone, as well as a customer's multi-tasking while operating and loading an automated checkstand can reduce the customer's association of a tone (or other success or failure signal) with a particular item that is being read in the read zone. Furthermore, some automated checkstands include bagging areas with multiple sections, but customers may have no intuitive way of knowing what side of the checkstand they should exit for picking up their purchased items.